


Lemurs come in threes

by TheRatsAreListening



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Gen, nonbinary!Zuko, toph uses a cuss word
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:40:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27088000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRatsAreListening/pseuds/TheRatsAreListening
Relationships: Zukki (in my head but not central to this)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 75





	Lemurs come in threes

These official meetings are very far from Zuko’s favorite thing. But when, by some miracle, the entire gang gathers for one, despite the fact that their schedules barely line up anymore, it’s less like a silver lining and more like the whole thing has been cast from gold. It’s still all business, of course, but once the heavy wooden doors shut behind the last advisor, it veers dramatically into slumber party territory, even now that they’re in their 20s. Getting here takes all of them a _while_ , so it’s customary to stay the night.  
  


They’re all out in the garden, now, shielded from the summer heat by an ornate wooden pavilion. A red bee lands on the slice of peach Sokka is about to stuff into his mouth, and his eyes go wide with something that’s not quite panic.  
  


“Look at him! What a _fluffy boy!_ He’s so round! Who gave him the _right_ to be so round!?“

  
“Worker bees are all girls,” Aang says with a smile, like a child sharing a new thing they just learned at school. “We had hives in the Southern Air Temple, Monk Gyatso liked using honey in his pastries. They were a different kind. I don’t think these ones would like the altitude. But they’re all girls, except for the drones, who don’t do much.”

  
“Just like real life, then,” Katara and Suki say at once, and then turn to each other to laugh.

  
Sokka interrupts his muttering about how dumb it is for a flying insect to have a problem adapting to altitude to feign offence. They know each other too well to actually be hurt by this sort of thing anymore. “I’ll have you know I’ve done _loads_ of stuff today. I helped Aang brush Appa. Do you know how LONG that takes?”

  
“Oh, is that why the gardens are full of fluff,” Zuko cuts in, and offers them such a subdued smile that it takes a trained eye to see it. “I thought the giant dandelions were in season.”

  
“We’ve talked about this,” Toph interrupts, firmly. She’s got a whole bench to herself and is lying on it, spitting cherry pits over the pavilion railing with absolutely disturbing accuracy, especially considering that her feet are off the floor. Zuko expects a row of trees to sprout in a few months. “If we’re going to bully the guys, I want to be included!”  
  


The conversation carries on for a bit. Over the general laughter, Zuko can’t hear Aang ask a quiet question from his left, but he does feel the warm breath, so he turns.

  
“Huh?”

  
“I said, is there something bothering you?”

  
Zuko pauses. Is there? 

  
The question tears out of him.

  
“Do you think the bees care if they’re girls?”

  
“Probably not,” Aang shrugs. “I guess all that matters to them is who makes honey and who lays eggs.”

  
“So is that what makes a girl bee?” Zuko asks, no less confused. “That it knows how to make honey?”

  
Everyone else has fallen quiet and is now looking at them.

  
“What about bigger animals with more complicated brains? What about moose lions or cat owls or people?”

  
“I guess the girls do carry the babies,” Sokka shrugs, and while nobody disputes it right away, the energy shifts noticeably. “What!? It’s true.”

  
“ _Sea horses_ ,” Zuko argues, sounding slightly unhinged. “We say the one that carries the babies is the _boy_ , and I don’t get it!”

  
“Besides,” Suki comes to his rescue, like the absolute hero that she is, “that is definitely reductive. It could be true of other animals with less complicated societies, but that’s not what makes a person a woman or a man.” 

  
“If I never have a child, I will still be a woman,” Katara confirms.

  
“If I never have a child, I will still be a menace,” Toph nods sagely.

  
Is that the full range of human identity, then? Man, woman, and menace?

  
“So then _what is it?_ Why am _I_ a man!?”

  
“ _Aren’t_ you?” Sokka asks, and his voice is so soft that it makes him feel weird.

  
“I don’t know. The whole thing just seems made up to me.”

  
“It is,” Toph shrugs, and he loves her for it. “I mean, no offense, Katara, but why are _you_ a girl?”

  
“Why are _you_ a girl?” Katara shoots back.

  
“I’m not. You will address me only as Melon Lord.”

  
“I guess I don’t see why there wouldn’t be other options,” Sokka pipes up over the laughter. “We’ve moved past the point of thinking men fight and hunt and women cook and mend their pants. Seems like a logical next step.”

  
“I would never cook your pants,” Katara objects, in a hilariously reassuring tone. “Feeding that to someone would violate the peace treaty.”

  
“You know what I meant!”

  
Aang has been quiet this entire time. He’s clearly thinking about something, and eventually, everyone falls silent once more, waiting.

  
“I wonder,” he says, in the end, “if the reason you don’t feel like a man is that you grew up with your idea of what that means shaped by the Ozai and the war.” 

  
The idea seems to spark something in everyone else. Thinking about it, Zuko doesn’t feel like this is accurate, but it’s too late. Everyone has already run with it before he’s had a chance to say anything.

  
“You know you don’t have to be your father, or a soldier, to be a man,” Katara prods, kindly.

  
“Exactly,” Suki bounces off of that. “I don’t have to be gentle and nurturing to be a girl—” she casts a knowing look in Sokka’s general direction “—and you don’t have to be warlike and harsh to be a boy.”

  
It’s a lovely sentiment, and Zuko tries to hold onto their good intentions as the topic keeps bouncing between Suki, Sokka, Katara and Aang, but it still doesn’t get to the heart of the matter for him, and he desperately wishes he was better at the whole words thing.

  
“I _know,_ ” he says, eventually, and when they pick up on the slight note of defeat in his voice, the enthusiastic hypothesizing drops off. “I’ve met Hakoda. I have my Uncle. I know there are many ways to be a man, and I definitely know you don’t have to destroy everything you touch to be one.” He chances a look up at them, but can’t hold it. He feels heavy and structurally unsound. “But even if you’re right and I just can’t admit to myself that Ozai got in my head, which I don’t think is it, would it _cost_ you anything to try and not see a man when you look at me?”

  
“What would we see, then?” asks Katara, supportively. 

  
“Ideally, nothing,” Zuko dares to laugh. The joke doesn’t seem to land for anyone except Toph.

  
“No problem at all!”

  
After another moment of silence, Aang decides that he has pertinent information. He points in the general direction of Momo, who, with his tail wrapped around one of the pillars holding up the roof, is devouring apricots with ruthless efficiency.

  
“Lemurs are actually not just boys and girls, you know? You got the egg, the thing that goes _in_ the egg, and the thing that the _egg_ goes in!”

  
Much like Zuko, Sokka looks at him blankly. “Buddy, I promise you nobody understood that.”  
  
  
“I mean they don’t just form pairs. They mate in groups of three. Two of them have the things that make a baby lemur, and the third one has the body that can nurture one. So there are definitely other options out there. And we are _so vast_. These are all just bodies. They’re temporary. We don’t let them dictate what we can or cannot be.”

  
“I can confirm all it takes to make nature your bitch is being stubborn enough,” Toph grins. Katara scolds her, perfunctory-like.

  
“So do we still call you Fire Lord?” Suki asks, now apparently fully on board. Zuko wishes everything was that easy.

  
“I mean. Yeah. I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s definitely more of a political term than a gender thing now. If the war had gone the other way, Azula would’ve killed anyone calling her the Fire _Lady_.”

  
“So, hypothetically,” Sokka interjects, so quickly that Zuko absolutely does _not_ believe it’s not something he’s thought about before, “if you and I got married—no, listen to me. If you and I got married, would _I_ be the Fire Lady?”

  
Zuko considers it for a moment, and then nods.

  
“ Yeah. Yeah, I think so.”

  
“ _S_ _weet!_ ”


End file.
